Sunday, May 08, 2005

Iraqi War Leaders - Three-Peat Complete!

With the re-election of Tony Blair yesterday, the three leaders of the the nations most involved in the war for freedom in the Middle East - Bush, Australia's Howard, and of course Blair - have all been re-elected. While both Bush and Howard succeeded with larger majorities than their previous victories; Blair's Labour party had their majority reduced significantly in Parliament. The Iraq war had something to do with this, but I don't believe it affected the vote of the average lunchpail Brit. Instead, the growing immigrant Muslim minority voted as a bloc against Labor (due in no small part to the war); and instead supported many far left/far right parties with views repugnant to the mainstream. Melanie Phillips writes a downbeat article about what the victory of candidates like George ( I LOVE Saddam!) Galloway means to the future of Great Britian http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/archives/001187.html:...the Galloway victory is a symptom of the tide of irrationality and hatred which has overwhelmed our mainstream culture.It is not such a large step from that mainstream irrationality and hatred to fascism. That is why, since the Iraq issue first emerged, we have seen the phenomenon of conservative audiences applauding Trotskyite agitators denouncing President Bush as a greater war criminal than Saddam Hussein and urging action against the 'rogue state' of Israel. Mark Steyn goes further http://www.steynonline.com/index2.cfm?edit_id=22 as he blogged the British election:The word is that George Galloway is ahead in Bethnal and Bow Green. The defeat of Oona King, a black Jewish pro-war Labour MP, will mark an ominous development in British politics. I think there's no doubt that, under cover of "anti-Zionism", there's now an explicit anti-Jewish component to the political scene. And, disreputable as it is, Labour nominating committees will be thinking very carefully about whether they want to run Jewish candidates.Nasty stuff. I don't know how upset I am about Blair's slimmer majority; his liberal policies on immigration, gun control, rural hunting, and now "thought-crimes" are endangering British society like nothing since the Black Death of the mid - 1300's. And the conservative Tory party did pick up a nice amount of seats; albiet nowhere near a ruling quorom. However, if the Tories cannot position themselves as anything other than "the same as Labour but different" party, then, much like Canada's Conservatives, they will be a party in the wilderness for a generation.Still, I must confess some surprise. I thought that the populations of all three of these countries were wildly against the war in Iraq; that it was the issue that would frame the elections; that the voters would rise up with outrage and toss out these warmonging neo-fascists...well, at least that's what the American Mainstream Media/BBC/ABC were saying, non-stop...Wrong. Again. Losers.